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The fusion of behavioral ecology and ecology

Deborah M. Gordon
- 01 Mar 2011 - 
- Vol. 22, Iss: 2, pp 225-230
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TLDR
As community ecology is broadening to include behavior, behavioral ecologists can begin to incorporate ecological perspectives in asking evolutionary questions.
Abstract
Behavioral ecology and ecology have projects in common Community ecology can provide behavioral ecology with the tools to ask realistic questions about the current action of natural selection Evolutionary ecology has moved beyond asking "Why does trait x contribute to reproductive success?" and on to "What are the conditions under which trait x contributes to reproductive success?" We need to bring this ecological perspective to the study of the evolution of behavior Community ecologists have recognized that behavior influences ecological outcomes For example, behavior contributes to the effect of history on community assembly, to indirect effects in predator--prey interactions, and to the responses of populations to human disturbance More generally, behavior is often the source of context dependence; behavioral responses in different conditions lead to different ecological outcomes As community ecology is broadening to include behavior, behavioral ecologists can begin to incorporate ecological perspectives in asking evolutionary questions Copyright 2011, Oxford University Press

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Citations
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Journal ArticleDOI

The Ecology of Invasions by Animals and Plants

TL;DR: Elton's "The Ecology of Invasions by Animals and Plants" as mentioned in this paper is one of the most cited books on invasion biology, and it provides an accessible, engaging introduction to the most important environmental crises of our time.
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An evolutionary ecology of individual differences

TL;DR: It is concluded that a complete understanding of evolutionarily and ecologically relevant individual differences must specify how ecological interactions impact the basic biological process (e.g. Darwinian selection, development and information processing) that underpin the organismal features determining behavioural specialisations.
Journal ArticleDOI

More on how and why: cause and effect in biology revisited

TL;DR: It is suggested that evolutionary biology would be better served by a concept of reciprocal causation, in which causation is perceived to cycle through biological systems recursively, and that a newer evolutionary synthesis is unlikely to emerge without this change in thinking about causation.
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From division of labor to the collective behavior of social insects

TL;DR: The use of the phrase ‘division of labor’ persists for historical reasons, and tends to focus attention on differences among individuals in internal attributes, which distracts from the main questions of interest in current research, which require an understanding of how individuals interact with each other and their environments.
Journal ArticleDOI

Behavior as a key component of integrative biology in a human-altered world.

TL;DR: This work presents the central role of behavior in a diagram illustrating the multifaceted program emphasizing the necessity for understanding this nexus and to fully appreciate the organism in its environment given the ongoing changes affected by contemporary human induced, rapid environmental change (HIREC).
References
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Book

The Unified Neutral Theory of Biodiversity and Biogeography

TL;DR: A study of the issue indicates that it is not a serious problem for neutral theory, and there is sometimes a difference between some of the simulation-based results of Hubbell and the analytical results of Volkov et al. (2003).
BookDOI

Evolution in Changing Environments: Some Theoretical Explorations. (MPB-2)

TL;DR: Professor Levins, one of the leading explorers in the field of integrated population biology, considers the mutual interpenetration and joint evolution of organism and environment, occurring on several levels at once.
Book

The Ecology of Invasions by Animals and Plants

Charles Elton
TL;DR: The first book on invasion biology, and still the most cited, Elton's masterpiece provides an accessible, engaging introduction to one of the most important environmental crises of the authors' time.
Book

The Geographic Mosaic of Coevolution

TL;DR: Picking up where his influential The Coevolutionary Process left off, John N. Thompson synthesizes the state of a rapidly developing science that integrates approaches from evolutionary ecology, population genetics, phylogeography, systematics, evolutionary biochemistry and physiology, and molecular biology.
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